Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Righteous Kill

Righteous Kill (Jon Avnet, 2008) - D-

UNGGGGH! BLECH! This is the last Jon Avnet film I'll be watching. Such a narrative debacle that I can barely describe it; engages in whopping misdirection that makes everything before the "surprise" ending boring and suspense-free, and everything after it (and by extension before it) nonsensical. Someone please explain to me why the villain sits the hero down and has him make that recording, given what he does moments after? And what exactly was he trying to accomplish by beating up Carla Gugino? Ugly and poorly edited to boot, and Pacino becomes almost a caricature of himself. Astonishing that he and De Niro can't find better work than this, though I watched this right after seeing De Niro in Barry Levinson's relatively pleasurable What Just Happened, so who knows.

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